Bank Customers In Britain Will Soon Be Able To Transfer Cash Between Accounts Just By Sending A Tweet

Easy: Twitter users will soon be able to use the social media app to transfer money using their smartphones

Bank customers will soon be able to transfer cash to another account simply by tweeting. Britain's high street banks are planning to allow account holders to pay money they owe to pals by tweeting the bank with the friend's user name and the amount. Bosses hope to make it easier for social media savvy youngsters to use their smartphones to bank.

ICICI Bank, based in India but with a UK arm, is already using the pay-by-tweet service, according to Patrick Williams in theDaily Star Sunday. A French bank also started using it last year. As well as Twitter other social media services like Facebook and WhatsApp may also be used in banking in the near future. In talks with the firms are HSBC, Barclays, Santander and NatWest. Only last week Apple launched its own Apple Pay service.

iPhones and Apple watch users can pay for goods and services by touching their device on a contactless payment pad. But there are fears fraudsters and hackers may be able to benefit from the move towards banking via social media.

Joining
up: High street banks HSBC, Barclays, Santander and NatWest are all in
talks with Facebook and WhatsApp over the possibility of using the
services in banking

In London last week Deloitte security consultant Stephen Nicholls told a cyberfraud conference: 'Twitter banking is not only coming, it already exists.

Executive director of ICICI Bank Rajiv Sabharwal said social media and mobile devices are the key to the company going where its customers are. Ping Pay, which allows customers to send money to each other using Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp or email, has been released by India's Axis Bank. Twitter is pushing into e-commerce in an attempt to find a new revenue stream to complement advertising revenue.